COLEMAN STILL AMAZED BY JACKIE ROBINSON’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Sure, they stared each other down in the World Series, with Robinson leading the Dodgers and Coleman the Yankees’ scrappy second baseman.

But Coleman’s exposure to Robinson, who was honored by Major League Baseball on Monday, goes back. Way back, to when Coleman was a senior at San Francisco’s Lowell High School.

“We were playing the Stanford frosh team in basketball, and after our game, UCLA played Stanford,” Coleman said. “There was this African-American out there for UCLA and he was running all over the place, making everyone look stupid. He was five players in one.”

Coleman, the Padres’ announcer, still shakes his head.

“I later found out it was Jackie Robinson,” he said. “Then the next time I saw him, he was a Dodger.”

Or better put, the enemy. The Yankees and Dodgers shared New York City with the Giants. But no one, according to Coleman, could match Robinson.

“We would have a meeting and talk about the players before the World Series,” Coleman said. “But the only Dodgers we talked about were Pee Wee Reese and Jackie. Not Roy Campanella, not Gil Hodges, not Duke Snider, not Billy Cox — it was Reese and Robinson. It was because those were the guys that could beat you. They were the creme de la creme.”

Robinson’s legacy rose to the top, but not for his baseball talents. When he took the field in 1947, he left a footprint that is rightly celebrated today and every day that Americans boast of being the land of the free.

Coleman still shudders at the inequality black players absorbed. Coming from San Francisco, Coleman said he was color blind. Then he began his baseball journey and was shocked and disgusted by how fellow Americans treated those of color.

“The more you think about him being the only person, the only black person in baseball, and what that would do to you,” Coleman said. “How do you live through that?

“You can’t stay in the hotels with your teammates when you were down South, in Kansas City or St. Louis. I remember when Elston Howard joined our team, he never stayed in our hotel. In spring training, he stayed with a doctor in town.”

Robinson was the talk of this town Monday, and every city that draws its breath through baseball. But Robinson’s impact stretched beyond the chalked lines, something Coleman stressed.

“I’ve said that 100 times,” Coleman said. “Robinson was the guy who led the path at a national level. He was years before Martin Luther King. Can you imagine what that felt like for Robinson?”

Bud Black, the Padres’ manager, appreciated the honor that accompanied facing the Dodgers.

Suddenly the talk of revenge regarding last week’s brawl in San Diego between these teams seemed small. It appeared frivolous to speak of Carlos Quentin breaking Zach Greinke’s collar bone when compared to Robinson smashing the color barrier.

“It’s a special day for baseball and I think for our society,” Black said. “To be playing against the organization he played for is special for all of us.”